http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132971,00.html
There's only a couple of things that the USA dislike more than having their world authority challenged.
The first is Canada ... and the second is draft dodgers.
The plan to hold a festival and build a monument to the many young men that fled to Canada to avoid being conscripted into the Vietnam war is raising the ire of Uncle Sam!
Can we expect another migration next year if Bush wins the election and has to draft thousands of citizens to go to fight in the war against Terror. I still can't find Terror on my maps! :-)
Maybe your Aussie-ness skews things, but I'll let you in on a little secret; in no way does Canada challenge our authority. Their health care system is a joke; patients wait forever to get taken care of. I guess the socialist idea is working... everybody has an equal chance of dying in a waiting room.
ReplyDeleteWhat has Canada done to challenge us?
Oh wait, they have more moose.
Hey Carl p, you're not another silly yank that believes Iraq had anything to do with terrorism before you invaded them are you? And now you're crying unfair that some warlike sand monkeys are trying to grab themselves a slice of the action in the power vacuum your bombs created?
ReplyDeleteGo Canada, that is pure Gold. I'd flee the US too if I was of draft age.
And for the records, President Bush has NOT proposed a draft.
ReplyDeleteThere was one proposed by Rep. Charles Rangel - a New York Democrat in 2003. His co-sponsers are all Democrats. The Senate sponser is a Democrat.
Query it yourself here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/
Look for S 89 and HR 163
Not one Republican legislator has come out in support of a draft. 80% of Americans are opposed to a draft in a CNN poll.
More pressing than a draft, and far more questionable is the fact that the US Government is forcing members of the military whose term of service is up to stay indefinately.
And what you are missing is the nuance of the whole draft proposal:
ReplyDeleteDemocrats propose it (knowing that only a small few will actually bother to check to see who the sponsor is). They keep talking about the potential of a draft over and over. Given the lack of political sophisitication of most Americans, with the right kind of language, they can frame is so that it looks like the President proposed it when he didn't.
I wanted to make sure the record was straight as to who is behind the move to re-instate the draft.
I would like to know what, if any, US military study you base your statement that a draft will have to be in place. My understanding was that there were troop movements from Germany and South Korea (where active duty/combat trained units are located) to help in Iraq.
According to the US Census Bureau, there are 1.4. million people in the Armed forces. (http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2003/cb03-ff04se.html ). I know that a fair number of the positions are non-combat MOS positions.
There are approximately 145,000 troops on the ground in Iraq. I'm not a mathematician, there is a really large disparity between 145,000 and 1.4 million. I don't think there will be a need for a draft any time soon.